Thursday, February 26, 2009

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Even though Dr. Seuss passed away several years ago, kids still love celebrating his birthday! Since he was born on March 2nd, next week our lessons will revolve around a tribute to him. Our book of the week will be The Cat in the Hat.

Video

This is a pretty good video about some of the myths of homeschooling - trust me, I've gotten almost all these comments, many from complete strangers. I try to not to be bitter about it, but it can be frustrating. I believe this was made by some homeschooled children for their mom.

Sunday, February 22, 2009


Just finished this new little bunting for Esme's Bitty Baby, Emily. So much fun to sew with a machine.
Esme is very interested in dinosaurs! We've been trying to read books about them and take trips to see evidence of them whenever we can fit them it. Esme has been asking to go see some actual dinosaur bones, so we took her to the local natural history museum this past weekend.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Thursday, February 19, 2009

This week's lessons....


Book of the week is The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss. Esme did wonderfully on her short U words spelling test so now we're moving on so short I words. She's learning about bones and will soon move on to the muscular and circulatory systems. In church school she learned about needle felting, and we just started a 4-week Fractured Fairy Tales series at our favorite local bookshop.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Taking a challenge at Scrapperie to blog about my Sunday activities....

First, I wake up my daughter. This is a challenge because she is used to sleeping late all week and has to get up around 8 on Sundays, and usually finds it objectionable. Then we get ready and head out for church. The first activity at our church is Sing. We sing lots of different kinds of songs for about half and hour, and then we have Sunday School. Esme goes to Godly Play and I go to Adult Ed whenever it is offered. Every other week we stay for the church service. This was supposed to be our week but I was feeling so blue after Adult Ed I decided to make it next week instead. Also next week is the last Sunday before Lent, so it will probably be extra festive.

After church we usually go home and wake up my husband. He works late so he usually does not go with us, unless there is something special going on. We usually have lunch together and then either settle into a nice day at home or go out someplace fun. We're a homeschooling family so two days are never the same for us - routines don't really happen in this house!

It's Been a While....Updates

This year is flying by. We have sooo much going on and lots to share. After trying out a couple different things this year, we've decided that structured lesson plans are what work best for our family, and we have gone back to the more traditional schedule we used last year. We're glad we tried more of an unschooling approach, but now we know this is what works for us.

We are happy to share that Esme had her very first spelling word list and test this past week, and she got 100% correct on her test! Whooo hoooo go Esme. She is moving right along in Math and Reading too. Most of Esme's interest revolve around science, and we are considering an Earth Science unit when we finish up our Human Body unit. We are hoping that we'll be able to take a trip to the science museum soon. I am excited about the new art curriculum I discovered, called Discovering Great Artists. We've just started and Esme has learned quite a bit about Picasso. I am hoping to use this in conjunction with our Picturing America materials as well.

Esme has been staying very busy. In Girl Scouts she's been learning about how to care for pets including going on a field trip to Petco. This month we're concentrating on dance - last week the girls learned line dancing from Aunt Cathy, and next week they'll be doing folk dancing with our friend Ben. They also have a snowshoeing event coming up, unless we have a big thaw between now and early March. Esme is still loving ballet class and we are very happy with her new dance school. We'll be starting a new series for homeschoolers around fractured fairy tales starting on Tuesday. We are looking forward to seeing some other kids we haven't seen since Fall.